Simpson's Lawyers Are Questioning the First Prospective Jurors About Hung Juries

By DAVID MARGOLICK,

Published: October 13, 1994

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 12—
Eighty-four people, a cross-section of polyglot Los Angeles, were ushered before Judge Lance A. Ito of Superior Court here today, 27 of them into the blue swivel chairs of the jury box and the row of seats in front of it. The first four jury aspirants then began their auditions for the O. J. Simpson murder trial.

"This is the matter of the People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson," Judge Ito told the 84, which probably included at least some of the 12 people who will sit in judgment of the former football star. The judge read the charges against the defendant in the formal language of the law: murdering, "willfully and unlawfully and with malice aforethought," Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman, each of whom he referred to as a "human being."

The judge introduced the lawyers, who, in turn, introduced those around them. "I'm Robert Shapiro, and this is Mr. O. J. Simpson," the chief defense lawyer told the jury candidates. A smiling Mr. Simpson bade them, "Good morning."

The questioning session, or voir dire, offered them their first live look at the lawyers in the case, and opposing counsel tried to exploit it, spending as much time endearing themselves as eliciting information: apologizing in advance for snubbing them in the halls or kicking them off the jury, portraying themselves as fighters for truth and justice and as apostles for color-blindness.

The session also afforded the lawyers their first crack at proselytizing the jury and laying out, if subtly, the themes of their cases. Opposing counsel were ostensibly questioning individual candidates, but with everyone in this first wave sitting restlessly in the room, they were in fact seeding the entire jury pool. That conditioning process explained why some interrogations droned on long after some candidates clearly talked themselves out of the running.

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., who is conducting the voir dire for Mr. Simpson, appeared intent on raising, and thus legitimizing, the prospect of a hung jury. "Suppose the count was 11 to 1; you wouldn't change solely for the sake of arriving at a verdict so that you could just go home, would you?" he asked one candidate. "You'd have the strength to stand by what you believe?"

Addressing another possible juror, William Hodgman, a prosecutor in the case, compared Mr. Cochran's question to flashing images of "a big tub of buttery, salty popcorn" on a movie screen, planting what he called a subliminal suggestion of a possible outcome. "Mr. Cochran talked to you a little bit about a hung jury," he said. "I think all parties are interested in having 12 people who can work together, listen to each other, discuss the evidence and reach a common verdict."

By day's end, only one of those questioned -- an accountant for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department whose job included ascertaining how much the Simpson case is costing his office -- was eliminated. These 84 prospective jurors are among 304 candidates in the entire first round, out of which the judge expects to find a jury of 12. Prosecutors expressed frustration with the pace, which left at least one jury candidate snoring. "This is a very stilted process," Mr. Hodgman said.

The first person in the box was a soft-spoken 52-year-old woman, a Filipino-American, a divorced mother of two who works in the Los Angeles County tax collector's office. She was questioned for an hour, first by Judge Ito, subsequently -- and more extensively -- by opposing counsel. Like others, she was identified only by juror number. She was a woman of few words today, often answering as if reluctant to raise any red flags.

The woman, from the increasingly Asian town of Monterey Park, first said she liked watching "America's Most Wanted" and "Unsolved Mysteries," for instance, but later maintained that she watched only the news. She acknowledged reading The National Enquirer, but added, "some possible bits of it are true but not all of them."

In her questionnaire, she said she had never heard of Mr. Simpson before June 12, when the bodies of his former wife, Nicole, and her friend Mr. Goldman were found outside Mrs. Simpson's home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. "I didn't know who he was until some one told me he was that sport player that was on TV sometime broadcasting a football game and on Hertz commercial," she wrote.

The next candidate, a white-haired 77-year-old retired fashion designer from North Hollywood, seemed even more eager to serve. Questioned by Mr. Cochran, he spent much of his time explaining what he had written down: that defendants had to prove their innocence, for instance, or that race is not a problem in Los Angeles. He also said in his questionaire that his daughter had been beaten by her husband. His personality seemed to vary by question and context. At one point, he said he would listen to "every last word," and at another that "bamboo that don't bend breaks." Moments later he said, "I stick to my guns all the time."

Asked whether he could be a fair juror, he replied: "Yes. I wish they were all like me."

The man who followed him, a 35-year-old ceramic tile salesman from Pasadena, said he tried to keep himself pristine. "I don't have a TV that's working at home, so that helped a lot," he said. Like other candidates, he promised to be conscientiousness. "You want to get an A on this, not a C," he said. Asked on his questionnaire whether he had seen Mr. Simpson play football, he wrote, "Yes. Wow! He was good."

Not everyone was as willing, including a 42-year-old black woman whose questionaire was among the first batch the court released today. "Not enthused to serve as a juror on such a widely publicized case. I prefer to win the Lotto."

At least on the first day, Judge Ito gave lawyers what he called unfettered leeway to ask questions. Gently, deferentially, humorously, colloquially, Mr. Cochran probed for signs of individuality, wariness of authority and stubbornness. He tried weeding out anyone who resented Mr. Simpson's high-priced legal team or could not handle ghastly pictures of crime scenes or felt that scientific evidence is infallible.

Mr. Cochran took genial, self-deprecating pot shots at lawyers, noting that they make their fair share of mistakes, and even at himself. When the retired fashion designer said he was "not the one to join a lynch mob at any time," Mr. Cochran, who is black, shot back, "I certainly hope not." The courtroom burst into laughter.

Ms. Clark asked her own set of loaded questions: "Do you think people are always the same in person as they appear to be on television?" "Do you think your first impressions of people are generally correct?" She was clearly after what jurors thought of Mr. Simpson before and after the crime. Another question, about whether someone who errs cannot be believed about anything, seemed related to police miscues in the case. "People make mistakes; that's why pencils have erasers," she said.